


Cutting through air like a sword through water

by IronShiba (wegglebots)



Series: 2020 Fódlan Summer Olympics [20]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Badminton, F/M, I guess it's romantic if you really squint, M/M, Mostly Platonic, Sports!, Table tennis, kinda sad vibes ngl, you and the pals doing the sports
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26382952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wegglebots/pseuds/IronShiba
Summary: What does it mean to win? To lose? To put everything on the line and come up empty?Linhardt faces his table tennis match. Raphael and Leonie face the badminton court.A tale of two battles, told side by side.
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Linhardt von Hevring, Raphael Kirsten & Leonie Pinelli
Series: 2020 Fódlan Summer Olympics [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1881421
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Cutting through air like a sword through water

Cutting through air like a sword through water

_______

I: Linhardt

  
  


Linhardt can hear his heartbeat. Thundering away.  _ Thud, thud, thud _ echoing in his ears. Everything else is static. White noise, fading into the background. Right now, there’s only him, the table, the game. 

The stadium lights bearing down on him almost seem to burn. He rolls his shoulders. Sweat drips down his back, his shirt clinging to his skin. The blue table before him seems to stretch out into forever. The hardwood floor under him seems to want to swallow him whole. The endless crowd beyond the stadium lights seem to watch every rise and fall of his chest. 

He holds the paddle, twirls it in his hand. On the other side of the table, his opponent, arm coiled like a serpent ready to strike. 

Who was he up against again? Dagda? Bridgid?  _ Irrelevant _ , Linhardt thinks. All that matters is the table. The game. The sprawl of time spreading out between them. 

_ Thud, thud, thud _ goes his heart. 

The air is electric. Charged with an energy that makes his hairs stand on end. Linhardt twirls the paddle a few more times in his hand. Shifts his weight from foot to foot. The ball in his hand is smooth, small, but it feels heavier than it should. Everything feels heavier than it should. 

He reaches up, prepares to serve the ball. His opponent’s stance changes. Alert. Ready. Linhardt feels like he’s about to break at the slightest touch. 

“Table tennis,” he mumbles, under his breath. “This is just table tennis.” 

Linhardt steadies himself. His body moves on its own. A motion he’s done countless times, again and again in training. He serves the ball. It flies across the table.

Slice. In one fluid motion, the ball comes flying back.  _ Thud, thud, thud _ goes Linhardt’s heart. 

His arm, outstretched. Against the paddle, impact. 

_______

II: Leonie and Raphael

  
  


Impact. 

Leonie’s racket hits the shuttlecock. A flick of the wrist, a swing of the forearm. It goes flying over the net. 

To Leonie, the badminton court is a battlefield. Every second a decisive moment. Every movement more important than the last. Every twitch of the muscle. Every sharp intake of breath. Everything adding up to an assured victory or a devastating loss. 

A shout from the other side. The opponent sends the shuttlecock flying back towards them. It flies wide over Leonie’s head. A shout from behind her. Raphael moves quickly, rubber soles squeaking against the floor. His large frame moves with a surprising deftness. A flick of the wrist, the speck of white goes flying over Leonie’s head once more. 

Almost against her will, Leonie looks to the scoreboard to the side of the court. They’re lagging. By a lot. No, comes the thought. I can’t lose. Not here. Not now. 

The opponent slips, ever so slightly. The return is wide. Leonie doesn’t even need to signal Raphael. He would know. Her leg muscles coil. Taut, ready. 

She leaps. The shuttlecock right in her sights. Time seems to stretch on. A moment, passing by Leonie’s eyes. She must win. Decisively. Her arm swings down like a sword slicing through the air. Elegant. Technically flawless. Hours built upon hours of training. Her lungs burn. Her muscles ache. She must win. 

The shuttlecock shoots down, like an arrow breaking through enemy defenses. It hits the hardwood floor, clatters away. A point. A step toward victory. 

The landing is hard. The impact reverberates, her right knee throbbing. Leonie grits her teeth. A sharp intake of breath. In the corner of her eye, faceless crowd, beyond the glare of the stadium lights. Watching.  _ I can’t lose, _ comes the thought.  _ I didn’t come this far just to lose.  _

“Leonie!” shouts Raphael. Leonie doesn’t even need to look at his face. His voice, laced with worry, gave it all away. 

An intense, piercing pain in her right knee. Undoubtedly an injury. If Leonie’s lucky, it’s nothing more than a strain. No, Leonie tells herself. I’m fine. I can win. I will win!

“I’m fine!” Leonie shouts back. She doesn’t need to see Raphael’s face. His stern features laced with worry. She braces herself. Her knee throbs. It throbs so much she swears she feels her racing heart through it. 

She can’t help it, she finds herself looking at the crowd once again. In her mind, she’s back home, struggling just to make ends meet. Her knee aches. Victory seems so far away.

I can’t lose, comes the thought. 

_______

III: Linhardt

  
  


Linhardt had lost. He wants to tell himself that it’s just a game. Just table tennis. Nothing really important.

He claps politely as the people on the podium are awarded their medals. 

Fourth. He had placed fourth. 

How long had Linhardt trained for this moment? How many hours, how many drills, how many times had he swung the paddle day in and day out before today? Hadn’t he tried enough? Hadn’t he given it his best effort?

A cold feeling rises up from the pit of his stomach as the winners take their bows, smiling proudly for the cameras. Bile rises up to the back of Linhardt’s throat. Bitter, swirling, like a vast emptiness within him. The medals hanging on the victors’ necks glint in the spotlight. 

It’s just a game, he tells himself.

_______

IV: Leonie and Raphael

  
  


Leonie looks down at the medal hanging off of her neck. Silver, glinting in the burning lights of the stadium. Beside her, Raphael grins broadly, brandishing the medal with pride. 

She looks to the stands. The faceless crowd watches on.

Her knee aches. The matches now finished, the adrenaline begins to settle and the pain radiating from her leg seems to intensify with every passing moment. It’s hard to walk. It’s also somehow hard to breathe. 

Only second best, she thinks.

_______

V: Linhardt

  
  


Linhardt stands on a balcony overlooking the matches of the next division, opposite where most of the crowds have gathered. The area is dimly lit. The smell of dust permeates the air. Beside him, Caspar, leaning over the rails.

“You gave it your best, Linny,” says Caspar, looking down at the matches below. “That’s what counts.”

Linhardt considers this for a moment. He closes his eyes. Inhales deeply. He imagines himself standing before the table once more. His opponent towering over him, impossibly large, impossibly powerful. Linhardt’s arms are weak, heavy. Like lead. The ball comes flying past him. Like a bullet, too fast to catch. In an instant, there is nothing. Just him and the paddle in his hand. It feels heavy. Everything feels heavy. Linhardt opens his eyes. 

“I walked into the temple of the gods, they weighed me, and they found that the sum of my entire being is lacking.”

Caspar blinks a few times. Scratches the back of his head absently. He grins, chuckling at himself. “You lost me there, Linny.”

Below, the matches carry on. The silence punctuated by the occasional grunt. The erupting waves of cheers that follow. Linhardt’s grip on the railing tightens. The metal feels so cold against his touch. Nothing like the burn of the stadium lights on his skin. He watches on, at the unfurling of a world beyond his reach. Despite his efforts, despite his work. He remains there as the rest of the universe moves on without him. 

“I wasn’t enough, Caspar.”

The smile on Caspar’s face fades. 

The two stare at each other. Linhardt feels like his gut is a swirling pool of nothingness. All the efforts he had spent the last few years had built up to nothing. A sandcastle too close to the shore. Eaten away by the waves. Linhardt looks away. From the corner of his eye, he can see Caspar turning around, leaning his back against the rail.

“Hey, remember how we used to play some table tennis back way back then?” he asks.

“Yes,” answers Linhardt. “Realistically, there was no way that we were going to box each other. So table tennis seemed more reasonable.”

Caspar chuckles. “Yeah. And it was table tennis or chess. We both know I don’t got what it takes for that shit. Still don’t get why the horse moves all janky.”

“The fact that you called it a ‘horse’ is quite telling.”

“It’s a horse! If they wanted people to call it a ‘knight’ then they shoulda made it look different!”

“Hmm,” mulls Linhardt. “I just had an interesting thought. Perhaps if the pieces were redesigned in such a way that appealed to a larger audience, more people would be more open to the game of chess.”

“You’re losing me, bud.”

“If the chess pieces were hot, you would like chess more.”

“Aw hell yeah, that should definitely be a thing!” goes Caspar, grinning from ear to ear. “Ah. Wait. We lost the point there.”

“The point?” asks Linhardt.

“Yeah, we were talking about playing table tennis.”

“Aren’t we talking about it right now?”

“Quit it, Linny,” goes Caspar, “you’re making my brain hurt.”

“You can land your point any time now, Caspar.”

“Right,” says Caspar. “How about we play a practice game, in the training hall? Should be empty right about now.”

Linhardt thinks about this. “Why?” he asks. He thinks that the last thing he wants to do right now is play more table tennis. At this point, he’d much prefer getting berated by Edelgard, which was telling. 

“When I’d feel pretty bummed about how my training was going, I liked to go ham on the punching bag to get my frustrations out.”

“So,” says Linhardt, his voice even, “your solution to training going bad was more training.”

Caspar squints. Linhardt could almost see the gears in his brain whirring. He shakes his head. “It’s like, a hard reset, you know?”

“I don’t know.”

Caspar groans. “It’s like, when you’re just thinking about shit too hard.” He waves his arms around, as if trying to demonstrate his point. “Sometimes just going through the motions helps you regain your footing.”

Linhardt weighs his options. He could always say that he’d rather chew rocks and head to his dorm room and sleep the rest of the week off. Caspar would never let it rest. He was a lot of things, and while his simple-minded approach to things was endearing, it also meant that he never let things go when he had his sights set on them. Linhardt sighs, loudly.

“Fine,” he says, already picking up his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. “Lead the way.”

Caspar smiles broadly. “Now that’s the spirit!”

They make their way to the training hall, which–as Caspar predicted–was fairly empty. Several tables are arranged in a grid-like pattern, awaiting to be dismantled by the end of the main events. Earlier in the day, the hall had been bustling with activity, each team sizing up the other as they got in some warm up swings. Off to the side Linhardt spots Raphael and Leonie, taking turns bouncing a shuttlecock on their rackets. Linhardt briefly wonders what they’re up to. 

Before he could say anything, Caspar rushes up to Linhardt, rummaging into his bag to grab a paddle. Caspar runs up to an empty table. Stretches his arms out wide.

“Dude,” he says, “what did I tell ya? Nobody here!”

Linhardt shakes his head. “Of course nobody’s here, they should be at the main event or done with it by now.” He sets his bag down. Pulls out his own paddle and a ball. 

“Ready when you are!” beams Caspar. He holds his paddle up, his fist clenched around the handle. He looks more like he’s about to box the ping pong ball rather than play any real table tennis. Linhardt shakes his head.

“Alright,” says Linhardt, crouching lower, his serving hand raised. “Here goes.” He serves the ball.

_ Tok, tok, tak. _

Caspar practically punches the ball with the paddle. It comes back to Linhardt’s side.

_ Tok, tak. _

Linhardt lazily meets the ball with a backhand swing. He pushes the ball to land an easy distance away from Caspar.

_ Tok, tak. _

“So, you wanna talk about it?” asks Caspar. His swings are exaggerated. Too much force, too little finesse. The ball crosses over to Linhardt’s side.

_ Tok, tak. _

“My footwork was ‘sloppy’ at best, my backhand swings were slow, and my reaction time was about as fast as it takes Ferdinand to realize that he’s been blabbering about himself too much. Shall I go on?” Linhardt swings lightly at the ball. He directs it to land right in front of Caspar. 

_ Tok, tak. _

“No,” asserts Caspar as he swings, “how are you feeling?” 

The ball flies toward Linhardt at an awkward angle. It’s too fast. Linhardt reaches out to swing, but his arm feels like lead. 

_______

VI: Leonie and Raphael

  
  


Sitting on the cool hardwood floor, Leonie exhales, deeply. “I feel like I’m never going to be good enough.” 

She stares pointedly at the floor. At the small cracks between the hardwood boards. She imagines herself becoming small enough to fit through the spaces. To crawl in and burrow underground and never be seen again. She exhales deeply, once more.

The training hall is mostly empty. Only a few lights have been kept on. The smell of sweat seems to linger in the air. The buzzing energy that had filled every corner of the room now replaced with an almost deafening silence. 

Raphael stands off to the side, leaning against the wall. He seems to consider what Leonie had said. He hums, loudly. 

“Can you stand alright?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” answers Leonie.

“Sure you are,” says Raphael. “Can you stand alright?”

Leonie looks up at Raphael. He’s frowning at her. She looks away.

“My old knee thing’s just flaring up again,” she finally says.

“You always pushed too hard when it came to training,” says Raphael.

“You don’t understand,” Leonie hisses. “Everything’s always so simple to you, you don’t ge —” Leonie stops herself. She looks up at Raphael again.

His frown is almost a scowl now. He opens his mouth to speak, but closes it again. He closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. He reaches for his training bag. Pulls out two rackets and a shuttlecock. He faces Leonie. “C’mere, I’ll help you up.”

“I’m sorry, Raph, I…”

“C’mere.” He reaches out with his free hand. 

On his face is a small smile. Understanding. Kind. Leonie takes his hand, lets him pull her up. Pain shoots up her leg. Leonie adjusts her stance, takes the weight off of her leg.

“That bad, huh?” says Raphael.

“Oh, I’ll be feeling the bad tomorrow for sure,” answers Leonie, chuckling a little. 

Raphael hands her a racket. “You up for a little hand-eye coordination practice? You know, the thing where we bounce the shuttlecock on the racket and pass it to each other?” As he explains, he bounces the shuttlecock on the face of his racket.

“That dumb shit Claude had us do?” goes Leonie, watching the rise and fall of the shuttlecock on Raphael’s racket.

“Yeah! Like back in our training days!” beams Raphael, as he steadily bounces the shuttlecock on his racket. “I’ll say things then when I’m done, I’ll pass it to you. Like this!”

And with a flick of the wrist, he sends it to Leonie. She catches it, awkwardly at first. After a few bounces she gets a feel for the rhythm. Each bounce sending a light, familiar rumble up her forearm. She watches carefully, up and down it goes. “Alright,” she says, “just like this.” And she passes it back to Raphael.

Raphael catches it. The shuttlecock bounces with an even tempo on his racket. “So, we won a medal, but you seem upset. Why is that?” A flick of the wrist, the shuttlecock comes flying back to Leonie.

She catches it.  _ Bounce, bounce, bounce _ . “We didn’t really win,” she says, “we were only second best.” She tosses.

It lands deftly on Raphael’s racket.  _ Bounce, bounce, bounce _ . “Are you saying that only the efforts of the first-placers bore fruit? The rest of us just wasted our time?” He bounces the shuttlecock toward Leonie. 

_ Bounce, bounce, bounce _ . “No? I’m just… you know.”

“No, I don’t know.”  _ Bounce, bounce, bounce _ . “Can you answer me something?”

_ Bounce, bounce _ . “What is it?”

_ Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce _ . “Why do you play badminton?”

_ Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce _ . “That’s a weird question, why wouldn’t I?”

_ Bounce, bounce _ . “I mean.”  _ Bounce, bounce, bounce _ . “Are you playing for yourself, or are you playing to beat someone else?”

Playing for myself? The thought hangs in her mind. 

_ Bounce, bounce, bounce, clatter _ . Leonie stares at the shuttlecock. She’d dropped it. It lay inert on the ground. Leonie looks at her racket, at the shuttlecock on the hardwood floor, at her calloused hand gripping at the racket. “Why am I playing badminton?” she asks.

Raphael takes a few steps forward. He scoops up the shuttlecock with his racket. He gets it bouncing once again.  _ Bounce, bounce, bounce _ . 

“I don’t know about you, but I play because I love this game.” Raphael ends by bouncing the shuttlecock up high. He catches it with the top of his shaved head, perched on there like a tiny hat. He beams at Leonie. 

Leonie can’t help it. She laughs. She laughs and laughs and those peals of laughter devolve into sobs as she falls to her knees. The pain in her knee spreads, radiating all the way to her chest. It hurts, she thinks. It hurts so much to come up so short. 

“I wanted the world to recognize my skill,” she cries out. “I wanted to be the best at something, not just second to someone greater. I wanted to go home a hero.”

_______

VII: Linhardt

  
  


Linhardt watches as the ball bounces past his swing. Watches as it bounces past the table, bounces off of into the distance behind him. He watches as it rolls away, eventually becoming inert on the ground.

“Linhardt?” comes Caspar’s voice, but Linhardt doesn’t hear him.

The ball, inert. The paddle in Linhardt’s hand feels heavy. So, so heavy. His arms fall to his sides. Bile seems to crawl up the back of his throat again. Ice, in his stomach. His every breath shaking, painful. He sees nothing but the ball on the ground. Nothing but his own failures.

“Hey buddy,” goes Caspar. He places his hands on Linhardt’s shoulders, almost a little too roughly. Linhardt snaps back to the present. Looks at Caspar, now standing in front of him. 

Linhardt doesn’t move. Doesn’t answer. Caspar takes the paddle from his hand, sets it on the table beside them.

“It’s okay to cry,” says Caspar.

And like a dam breaking down, Linhardt cries. Hot tears streaming down his face, down his chin, going splat, splat, splat against the hardwood floor. He says nothing. Caspar pulls him in for an embrace. Pats Linhardt softly on the back as he cries his very soul out.

“You know,” says Caspar, “I don’t care what anyone else says. I know you do your best. I know you try so much harder than people think. I’m always watching, you know?”

“I know,” Linhardt manages between sobs. “I’m sorry I didn’t do better.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m proud of you, you know? I’m always so proud of you.”

Linhardt cries harder. 

“Every day, without fail, especially when you think no one is looking, you do your best,” says Caspar. “But you can’t fool me! I’m always looking!” Caspar chuckles.

“Kinda creepy,” answers Linhardt. 

He wraps his arms around Caspar’s broad back. Buries his face in the crook of Caspar’s neck. He smells like sweat. Like the leather of his boxing gloves. Like the sun itself bottled into a person.

Caspar laughs. “Well, I don’t care if that makes me some kinda sicko stalker. I’ll be your sicko stalker!”

Despite himself, Linhardt chuckles. “That doesn’t sound as reassuring as you think.”

“Point is,” goes Caspar, “I’ll always think you’re the best. The most passionate. The most hardworking. The rest of ‘em are scrubs compared to you.”

“I fucking  _ lost _ , Caspar.”

“And I don’t fucking  _ care _ , Linhardt.” Caspar squeezes a little harder. “In my book, you’re always the best. The fucking greatest of all time!”

Linhardt pushes away. On his face, a wry smile. He wipes away at his tears roughly with the back of his hand. Caspar smiles back, as reassuring as ever. 

This isn’t fair, thinks Linhardt. One moment he’s feeling so immensely sorry for himself and Caspar had to go ahead and just make everything better. Linhardt, the most passionate? The most hardworking? The greatest of all time?

“Well, shit, then,” goes Linhardt.

“Hm?”

“I guess I gotta live up to those grand expectations of yours.”

_______

VIII: Leonie and Raphael

  
  


“You know what I think?” asks Raphael.

“What?” asks Leonie.

“I think that the true measure of a person is how they are when they don’t think anyone’s looking.”

Raphael stuffs the rackets and shuttlecock into his bag, slinging it over his shoulder. He picks up Leonie’s bag and slings it over his shoulder too. He offers an arm to Leonie. 

She leans on Raphael, her knee now too stiff and painful to take her weight properly. “What do you mean?” she asks.

Raphael begins to lead them out of the hall, back toward the athlete dorms. “You know,” he says. “Like, when we’re playing a match, that’s only a few hours. But the total amount of training that got us there? Hundreds of hours. All unseen effort.”

Leonie limps along, slowly. The cool air outside feels pleasant on her skin. The night sky seems vast. She hears the distant chatter of groups in the distance. Many smaller groups, scattered all around her, each lost in their own little worlds. She wonders, how many of them were lost in battles of their own? Unseen moments. Unseen efforts.

“Huh,” she says. “Never really thought of that.”

“Yeah,” goes Raphael. He stops. Looks up at the sky. “Anything can happen in a match. Some things beyond your control. But all the time outside of those matches? Those are moments that are in your hands. Moments that define you and everything you’ll be.”

“Holy shit,” goes Leonie, “did you eat something weird or whatever? You’ve gone all zen on me, bro.”

Raphael laughs. “Hey man, sometimes I can be wise too!”

Leonie looks up at the sky, laughing too. “Moments that define you, huh?”

“Yeah,” says Raphael. “And I’ve seen the way you train when you don’t think anyone’s looking. Always your best. Always your hardest.” He points at Leonie’s aching knee. “Not always good for you, but you’ve never let anything stop you. And I think that says more about you than any match outcome.”

Raphael pauses a little. Looks at Leonie, smiling smugly. “And for what it’s worth, I think you’re definitely going home a hero.”

A breeze blows past. The wind feels cold against Leonie’s cheeks. She feels lighter somehow. Tears cloud her vision. It’s weird. It was acknowledgment that she had so desperately craved, wasn’t it? 

“Thanks,” she says, barely a whisper.

Raphael grins. “What was it you used to say? The opponent’s like a pond and you’ll cut them with your racket?”

Leonie groans. “Ugh,” she says, wincing. “Please don’t bring that up right now.”

“No,” Raphael says, correcting himself. “You said the opponent is like this powerful river and you’d be the sword to cut past their current!”

Leonie groans louder, her face burning. “Oh my fucking god Raph please don’t do this to me right now.”

“Aw, why not?” Raphael teases. “I think it’s super poetic. You should write a letter and read it out before every match.”

“I will do no such thing,” Leonie hisses. 

Raphael beams at Leonie. “I believe in you, you know that?”

Leonie beams right back at Raphael. “I believe in you too, muscle-head.”

“There we go,” he says. “You’re back.”

“Hell yeah I’m back. And you better bet that as soon as my knee stops being shitty, we’re gonna hit the court twice as hard!”

Raphael chuckles. “Aye aye, ma’am!”

Leonie feels it, deep in her gut — a fire, burning bright. A fire, unseen by most, a fire that she’s carefully tended to day in and day out. She will grow. She will fight. She will continue to push past pain and hardship. All for the chance to be the sword that can cleave even the mightiest oceans.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution to the Fodlan Summer Olympics! Totally not the characters I usually write for, so this was deffo an interesting challenge. Thanks to y'all for inviting me to be on here (even tho there was this long stretch of time where my online presence pretty much died HAHA). It was a blast!


End file.
